New Natur-Tyme store opens, moves closer to its Syracuse roots

Jim Commentucci / The Post-StandardNatur-Tyme owner Wendy Meyerson poses for a photo in 2009 at the Bridge Street health food and nutrition store near East Syracuse. Meyerson has moved Natur-Tyme to a new, larger location in Empire Plaza on Erie Boulevard East.

Syracuse, NY -- Tyme’s up.

Wendy Meyerson’s Natur-Tyme health food, supplies and services center is fully up to speed, with the opening Wednesday of the expanded Natur-Tyme store.

You’ll find it at 3160 Erie Blvd. E. in DeWitt, in Empire Plaza along with the likes of Charney’s, Guitar Center, Petco, Pascale’s Liquor Square and Ollie’s. Natur-Tyme moved from its Bridge Street outpost, where it’s been since 1992.

This brings Natur-Tyme closer to the city where it was born. Myerson’s father, Stan Myerson founded the mail-order supplemental-medicine business NEEDS, moved it to Charles Avenue in Solvay in 1992 and shortly after, opened the health food store he named Natur-Tyme.

Wendy has been in the driver’s seat for a few years now and now, along with Natur-Tyme, brought NEEDS to Empire Plaza, housing it in the former Goldberg’s furniture store.

Now, it’s Natur-Tyme time:

“The store is absolutely, absolutely unbelievable,” said Myerson. “It is the first of its kind to have a natural salon inside, we’ve got the Tyme-Out Café, and a community room and a lot of great things planned for Central New York.”

Natur-Tyme is open daily, with a grand opening celebration scheduled for the weekend of Aug. 18-19.

Among the new and enhanced services at Natur-Tyme are larger selections of food and products, that Tyme-Out Cafe for fresh fruit, veggies, smoothies, juices, coffees and more.

The new Natur-Tyme lineup also includes an enhanced body salon for hair, skin and massage services and a large community room available for public use as well as guest speakers and workshops— there’s quite a lineup from now and into the fall.
Twelve workshops are lined up for that grand weekend opening, which is packed with events — enough for Myerson to call on Caz Limo to bring shoppers across Erie Boulevard, where there’s parking at Taco Bell, er, Paradise Plaza.

Natur-Tyme’s phone number is 488-6300.

Express checkout

Hot on the heels of its wildly successful opening in Destiny USA, Popeye’s Louisiana Kitchen has some sizzling news: It plans to double its store count in the U.S., growing to 3,200, according to Bloomberg.

When the Popeye’s stand opened in Destiny’s food court at the end of June, it was met with weeks of long lines, enough so that the mall’s general manager, Rob Schoeneck, said it was the biggest opening in the mall’s food court ever.

Now, former KFC executive Cheryl Bachelder wants to lead Popeye’s on a huge nationwide rollout, fiddle with the menu and court white customers.
“We’ve really reached the hearts and minds of a much broader customer base,” Bachelder told Bloomberg in an interview in Bachelder’s office at Popeyes’ Atlanta headquarters. While 40 percent of the chain’s customers are black, that’s changing as Popeyes opens eateries in places such as Sparks, Nev., where about three-quarters of residents are white, according to Bachelder.

Solar power is giving weekly gasoline breaks to customers at Murphy’s Convenience Shoppe at 5084 Velasko Road on Onondaga Hill. Owner Kevin Stack loaded up some solar panels and is now getting 15 percent of the store’s energy from the sun. Stack wants to pass that on. So on Wednesdays, customers get 10 cents off every gallon of gas.

Store Front run Fridays in CNY and Sundays in The Post-Standard Business section, and blog.syracuse.com/storefront is updated regularly. The Store Front e-newsletter is delivered Wednesday mornings to Friends of Store Front. Contact Bob Niedt at bniedt@syracuse.com. You can call Bob at 470-2264.